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Are Your Customer Service Reps Spending a lot of Time on Facebook? Good!

I recently vented on Facebook about having to wait (and wait) for a certain company’s customer service team to get their act together to fix my broken dishwasher. After I endured several excruciatingly long waits in the telephone queue, the repair technician finally arrived one bright, sunny morning.

Unfortunately, not all the right replacement parts had arrived before him. Nor did he have the missing parts in his van. So the long anticipated repair did not occur and there I was, still standing at the sink in a pair of fetching yellow rubber gloves, scrubbing away and hoping that both parts and technician would be available when the next ‘4-hour’ window arrived in a week’s time.

I let all my Facebook friends know how unhappy I was about this and warned them of buying from this particular manufacturer (though I did speak with admiration about how my pots and pans were surviving my rough handling). This generated much sympathy from my friends but, curiously, I received no sympathy from the customer service team that was supposed to be helping me fix the problem. In fact, I got no response at all.

And that was a wasted opportunity for the customer service team.

Today, social media—Facebook in particular—is the place where everyone either screams gleefully about something great or snarls at something bad. Companies can learn a lot about its brand perception from this type of social media feedback, perhaps more than it ever learns in focus groups. For better or worse, people often provide unfiltered and uncensored input about the experiences they’re having—and those experiences influence the community. Who knows how many of my friends are thinking about my customer service experience and thinking that maybe they want to consider another vendor’s appliances for their upcoming kitchen remodel?

Customer-focused companies should view this as a golden opportunity. Let’s say a company encourages its customers to “like” its Facebook page—they’re now connected. If that company is smart, they’re really connected: the company is going to connect my Facebook profile with my customer profile they already have in their CRM and ERP systems.

So when I post a Facebook status update grousing about the strange noise my dishwasher is making, the company will not only know about it, they’ll know who I am. And in a truly well-integrated world, they’ll know exactly which dishwasher model I own, when I purchased it and how much, if any, of the warranty is still available.

At that point, a service representative monitoring Facebook could see my complaint, cross reference my dishwasher model with other reports of strange noises—and realize that the bearings holding the motor in place might be the culprit, as they have been on similar models. In that scenario, here’s what we might see on Facebook:

Vinay Iyer: Fed up with standing at the sink doing dishes because my dishwasher is making loud whiny noises and refusing to cooperate.

Like · Comment · 5 minutes ago

Dishwasher Representative: Mr. Iyer—is that the model XXX that you bought three years ago? Sorry to hear that you’re having a problem! Sounds like the bearings might be going out, but we can fix that. Click here to schedule a time when it would be convenient for our service representative to come out and replace them.

Like · Comment · 2 minutes ago

Would you be impressed by such a response? I’d be impressed not just by the proactive response (even if it took more than three minutes), but also because the customer service representative made the effort to discover what the problem might be and made it easy to schedule a service visit that fits my schedule.

I think anyone following my post might be just as impressed. Instead of my grousing causing my friends to have a negative impression of Dishwasher Representative’s company and products, I believe the response will leave an indelibly positive impression in their minds.

So, back to the question in the title of the blog: Are your customer service reps spending a lot of their time on Facebook? You’d better hope so. That’s what consumers like me expect today!

As Vice President of Global Marketing at SAP I am responsible for 360° Customer Experience thought leadership, social media marketing, go-to-market strategy and execution and customer engagement. Follow me on Twitter @VinayIyer.

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I’m glad you posted this article. I am having a very similar issue with frightening similar responses from support – except with my issue, the problem lies in a bug within a software’s API that I am using. The software is an SAP product.

I first encountered the bug about 8 months ago and reported it in early January. I didn’t not receive any updates on the report until I inquired again in early May. I even made a demonstration video in May to show, step by step, the bug so that anyone can reproduce the issue.

I was then asked to fill out a questionnaire (one that is a bit intrusive on gathering information on business operations, if I may say so) so that the issue can be escalated.

It’s been almost two months since the issue was confirmed and I have yet to get a response on a resolution or fix.

My experience and issue with this bug is not the bug itself as there is fortunately a workaround fixes 90% of the cases. The issue lies in the customer experience of dealing with bugs through SAP, which lies at the very heart of your article’s theme and ironically, follows the very same experience that you are writing about.

Thank you for the feedback on your experience with the support issue that you raised. If you are not already aware, there is a vibrant SAP Community Network specifically for discussing and getting product support. I suggest that you post your issue in the SAP Community Network where the resolution time can be as quick as 30 minutes! If you have already done so, I would be very pleased to follow up with you directly on the solution you are speaking of and would take the opportunity to turn this experience into a much more positive one for you. My email is vinay.iyer@sap.com

Which also brings up the highly debated issue – are communities like Facebook places for B2B kind of support discussions? Another topic altogether :)

I do freelance community management for a number of communities–ranging from a small bakery in Greenwich Village to a Fortune 500 company. I see a variety of customer quips and complaints on social media–so much so, that I feel even more inspired to do a better job when I receive something that requires action. Facebook’s new “Message” function for pages helps me solve customer questions or resolve issues without seeing public posts defaming the company. Conversely, there have been many times where I’ve responded to glowing praise via private message.

So why are companies not jumping on this opportunity to help their most vocal consumers? Lack of resources, knowledge, or general apathy. If a customer puts in enough effort to decry a brand online, they are worth pleasing and maintaining. If you think about it, if a consumer has no connection to a brand they won’t put forth that effort.

I had a horrific experience at a grocery store in Union Square, and have yet to hear back from them after posting on Twitter and Facebook. I generally like the store and shop there every week–leading to an emotional connection since its incorporated into my Sunday routine. If I don’t hear back, I may not go back to the store.

Yes, Facebook messages is an opportunity for Brands to respond but the fact is that over 70% of customer issues that surface in social media aren’t resolved by the brand in question. One of the big problems currently that I have seen is that most companies approach social media as a ‘branding’ or ‘marketing’ or ‘customer support’ department issue. Also, in most cases, social media issues do not have tie-ins with traditional telephone and web support channels. So, it is a practical challenge for the people managing social media channels to effectively resolve many customer issues. The good news is that technology is evolving fast, and I am hopeful vendors like SAP and others will provide better solutions to market soon.

The grocery chain you shop with would be well-served to at least respond to your issue. Blogging about it and posting it on some 3rd party communities where these conversations are taking place could be an additional way to gain attention for the issue. In the meantime, loyalty runs deep – I’m curious how many incidents like that it will take before you dump them completely!

It’s funny you mentioned my issue. The grocery store responded to my complaint on Facebook, e-mailed me a canned response, and then the director of meats and seafoods for the tri-state area called me this morning. He assured me that a new manager has been hired since the other was lacking for a while. I’m not sure if I’ll go back to that store for produce, but the thought does count. The moral of the story is to respond in real-time not after two weeks elapse.

I am impressed that you got the response you did! It is really hard for companies to stay on top as I explained earlier. With retail margins so thin, it is really hard for retailers to staff adequately to monitor and respond to social media interactions. I would personally give them a 2nd chance :)

You’re right Vinay, this is the new standard of customer service and what people now expect from companies. It is definitely not too much to ask!

There is a benefit to training customers to post their complaints on Facebook…it keeps you in the loop so you can take care of the problem promptly and publicly, and it prevents customers from posting bad reviews on google places and other review sites that show up permanently in search engine results and ruin your reputation.

I cannot agree with you more! While it sometimes may not be possible to ‘train’ customers, I do believe in the good nature of people to acknowledge a prompt support experience in response to a scathing complaint.

Another thing I have observed in strong customer communities is the growth of community ‘champions’ who do step in to counter any unfair accusations. It is indeed amazing how things are evolving in the social world.